Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Eastbound and Up (On The Road to NYC)

Ana and I awoke late in DC as usual, like I said in the previous blogs the Brazilian Sleeping Sickness is a bitch. After drinking free coffee, brushing teeth and frantically shoving clothing into bags, making sure we hadn't forgotten anything we drug our overloaded Steamer Trunk downstairs in time to wait in line to check out. Unfortunately for us a boatload of Europeans had landed in the lobby, all wanting to stay at the Days Inn, Washington DC. All twenty were jabbering and frothing to get their rooms at 8 in the morning and we were trying to get the the hell out of the place. Our bus to New York City wouldn't wait forever and the tickets were non-refundable.
You see Ana found this bus service called MEGABUS that has trips between DC and NYC for $1 if you book enough in advance. Of course I didn't book enough in advance so our tickets combined cost a whopping $26 but still we didn't want to miss our cheap bus. So after waiting for the Euro to get out of the way, I handed in our flimsy plastic hotel cards, signed a few forms and off we hustled to the Metro Station with no working escalator, thump, thump went the 600lb bags. The Metro doesn't run as often on weekends and I cannot complain about that because walk into any state Capital or City Hall on a Sunday and you might see two people farting around and both of those people are probably hungover trying to find their car.
We made it a few letters from our street which was H and we ran two blocks to get to the bus in time. I remember dragging those heavy bags toward the parking lot where the bus was to be waiting for us. We rounded a corner and saw two or three buses loading passengers but only one had the HUGE Megabus sign. I handed our IDs and Tickets to a man with a clipboard who checked our names off, placed a tag on our bags and tossed them to Isaac Hayes who placed them in the back of the bus. Ana and I clambered upstairs to the top of the double decker bus and got situated, Ana wondered if she had time to go and get something to eat or a coke but it wasn't five minutes after she said this that the bus lumbered to life and started moving out of Washington DC and toward The Big Apple. After calming down from our mad sprint which I would find out later would become a theme throughout our DC-NYC-Boston trip, we sat back and enjoyed the A/C. There really wasn't anything else to do for the 4 1/2 hours other than to gawk out the windows. To tell you the truth, I was like a kid in a candy store because I had never been this far into the northeast before in my life. Luckily this was a double decker bus so instead of looking out the window and seeing the side of an 18 wheeler I could see over trucks for the most part. I took this time to clean my camera lens and rubberneck and Ana tried to sleep off her sleeping sickness that and she did take an allergy pill and those make her drowsy. I wish I had her ability to sleep in a moving vehicle of that I am envious except when she is driving. A few times the bus stopped to pick up more passengers, the only stop that I remember clearly is Baltimore in a Mall parking lot.. The bus got to the stop and a few people loaded on with their baggage and tickets ready. After sitting there for at least 15 minutes this silver VW Station Wagon pulled up and just as a boy with a NY University tshirt and his father got out of the car the bus started moving. The look on the fathers face was priceless to say the least, with his hands raising over his head and what I can only assume were the words "What the hell" as he watched the bus slowly crawl away, stranding him with his son for a few more hours until the next bus. If there is one thing I have learned with these trips with Ana is that you shouldn't be ashamed to run after your transportation, unless of course it is a NYC Subway then you should just give up.

We reached New Jersey and I think it can best be summed up by a George Carling quote "You can't back out of your driveway without some prick in a vest wants fifty cents" and "You can't get good gas mileage in New Jersey cause you are a constant state of slowing down". It is hard to judge a state while you are on the road though and most of what I know about the state comes in the form of Springsteen and The Soprano's. Still, it looked nice out the window.

The Megabus pulled into a Gas Station/Rest Stop in New Jersey about 2 hours from NYC and I thought we were picking up more people. I was halfway right, we were making a personal stop for the bus driver, I will explain. The best way I could and will describe our bus driver is imagine if Barry White and Isaac Hayes had a LOVE CHILD. Unfortunately he didn't take on much of either parents award winning personality. In fairness, I imagine his attitude was brought on with dealing with the public and bad drivers all day plus a bad case of hemorrhoids. That combination would make anyone a little bit grouchy. So Barry Hayes walks up to the second floor of the bus counting as he is walking along the aisle telling people to stay in their seats and if you have ever been in a plane you probably know how many times he had to say that to get that point across. (This being Isaac White though it took about 3 times, if he had been a little white female stewardess it would have taken 150). Mr. Whitehayes starts telling us that this isn't a scheduled stop but a personal stop, he is going to park the bus here for 15 minutes and when those 15 minutes are up the bus is going to be leaving with or without all the passengers. Everyone busts ass to take a piss and buy a coke from the gas station getting back in time for Mr Whitehayes to smoke a cigarette, make his count, straighten his Kangol. The Megabus slouches toward NYC.